Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee

Kaelen’s office sits on the top floor of the administrative sector.

I expected something like Dean’s observatory. Expensive wood, academic symbols, shelves full of treatises and objects chosen to remind any visitor of the importance of the man sitting behind the desk.

Kaelen has other priorities.

The walls are dark stone and carry old military maps, some so worn the markings have been redrawn by hand several times. There are unit plates, pieces of armor, and three weapons displayed on discreet stands. None of them looks decorative. Marks on the blades, replaced leather on the grips, and small deformations in the metal give away years of use.

An old banner takes up part of the wall behind the desk. The fabric was torn down the middle and sewn back together, leaving an uneven line running across the nearly faded symbol of a squad.

Kaelen comes in without explaining anything and goes straight to his own chair.

He picks up two documents lying on the desk, runs his eyes over the first, and starts signing something.

Garen, on the other hand, walks to a side cabinet with the ease of a man who’s opened it many times before.

"Drink?"

"Nothing with alcohol, please."

He opens two doors.

"Soline juice?"

"Lunaria juice, please."

Garen pulls out two bottles of Lunaria.

I let out a short laugh.

"You really are the opposite of Veric."

He hands me one.

"He prefers Soline?"

"If you offer him both, he’ll pick Soline without thinking."

Garen looks at the bottle in his own hand.

"Must be his mother’s fault."

I let another laugh slip and follow the two of them into the room.

That’s when I notice the couches.

Three large pieces form a conversation space in front of a low table. Dark leather, thick cushions, wide armrests. In any other world, that would be ordinary furniture for someone wealthy. In Thirstfall, where comfort competes for money with equipment, OXI, food, and survival, a couch like that is almost a declaration of priorities.

Kaelen finishes the papers, pushes his chair back, and points at them.

"Sit. My desk already turns enough things into bureaucracy."

I obey.

The couch sinks under my weight in a way that’s almost offensive.

"Damn."

Garen looks at me.

"Good?"

"Now I understand why he runs an Academy."

Kaelen opens the same cabinet, takes out an amber bottle, and pours two shots. One stays with him, the other with Garen. By the smell, some strong liquor.

The two of them settle onto the couches.

I’m still holding the Lunaria juice, unopened.

Kaelen takes a sip before speaking.

"Garen told me very little about you."

I look at him.

"That’s reassuring."

"And it’ll stay that way."

The red gem in his left eye turns slowly while he rests the glass on one of his legs.

"I don’t know where your visions come from, what they have to do with your Class, or how much you can see. I don’t want to know either."

I wait.

Kaelen continues in the same plain tone.

"I trust Garen Azurea with my life. I’ve done it enough times in the trenches not to need an explanation every time he says something matters. If he claims you can see events that haven’t happened yet, I work with that possibility until I have a reason to stop."

Garen stays quiet.

Kaelen glances at him briefly before turning back to me.

"Every warrior who survives long enough in Thirstfall carries things that belong to him alone. Class, curse, memory, debt. I respect that. Curiosity was never a good reason to pull a secret out of someone."

That catches me off guard.

I’ve known powerful people who wanted to own any piece of information they didn’t understand. Rahul asked until he found value. Rae collected details to use later. The Deepwarden turned secrets into collars.

Kaelen seems satisfied not to know.

Maybe living years in the trenches teaches certain people to recognize limits better than any political etiquette.

He takes another sip.

"I only want one answer."

His posture stays relaxed, but the human eye fixes on me.

"Do I die?"

I look at Garen.

He doesn’t react.

Kaelen didn’t ask out of fear. He seems to want only an operational piece of information before deciding what to do with it.

I rest the bottle between my hands.

"I can’t see your death."

Kaelen raises an eyebrow.

"Is that good?"

"Not necessarily."

He waits for the rest.

I choose my words carefully.

"Your lines get hard to follow after a certain point. There’s a future where Garen dies, and his death weakens Azure Prime. After that, I see the Deepwarden pushing on the Academy with much more force."

The humor leaves Garen’s face.

Kaelen stays motionless.

"You and Valerius will be Rank SS when the confrontation happens. The Academy holds out for a while, but the Deepwarden will have more people, allies, resources, and influence spread across Azure Prime without the government’s resistance. In the end, you lose the institution."

The red gem keeps turning.

"And after that?"

"I see you going to the trenches."

Kaelen frowns slightly.

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"And after that?"

I shake my head.

"After that, I can’t find you anymore."

That’s the story they need to hear.

Inside my head, it’s much simpler.

I remember what happened.

With Garen dead, Kaelen lost one of the few political forces in Azure Prime capable of sustaining open resistance against the Deepwarden. The infiltration he tolerated inside the Academy became an occupation structure the moment Valerius decided to act.

The two of them reached the same Rank.

That never meant equality.

Valerius had an entire organization behind him.

Kaelen had an Academy already surrounded from within.

The war ended with Azure Prime taken and Kaelen vanishing into the trenches. No one I knew could say whether he died, kept fighting, or simply decided never to come back.

Kaelen lets out a heavy sigh.

He sinks into the couch and lets his head rest against the back.

For a few seconds, he stares at the ceiling.

He looks tired.

Not afraid.

Garen doesn’t say anything either. The two of them stay there in silence, each processing a version of the future in which one would die and the other would lose almost everything.

Kaelen finally lifts the glass and drinks the rest in one go.

Then he settles back in.

He looks at Garen.

"So he’s better than Valerius?"

I don’t understand.

Garen arches an eyebrow.

"At what?"

Kaelen points the empty glass in my direction.

"This. His visions reach years ahead. That goes well beyond what they credit to Valerius."

My attention shifts immediately.

"Garen mentioned the rumors."

Kaelen looks at me.

"So you already know."

"I know there are suspicions. He said he could never prove anything."

Kaelen rests the glass on the table.

"I could."

The bottle of Lunaria stops on its way to my mouth.

"How?"

Kaelen runs a hand along the scar on his cheek.

"Crevona. Many years ago."

Garen looks away for a moment, recognizing the name.

Kaelen continues.

"We were holding a position on an inner wall. Good visibility, a retreat route, two support teams above, and a defensive line ready. Valerius arrived, looked at the terrain for less than a minute, and ordered everyone to abandon the sector."

"Why?"

"He didn’t say."

Kaelen picks up the liquor bottle and pours another shot.

"It looked like an idiotic decision. The new position was worse in almost every way. Garen argued. So did I. Valerius repeated the order and said that if we stayed there another twenty minutes, no one would go home."

Garen breathes out through his nose.

"I remember."

Kaelen nods.

"Seventeen minutes later, a rupture opened the whole wall. A colony that had been dozens of kilometers below rose up with it. The camp disappeared."

I go still.

"There could have been some sign."

"We looked."

Kaelen turns the glass between his fingers.

"No OXI shift in the terrain. No different animal behavior. No report of movement below. Nothing that justified that decision."

He lifts the human eye to me.

"It happened other times."

My grip on the bottle tightens.

Kaelen keeps talking without turning it into a dramatic revelation. To him, it’s information accumulated over years in the trenches.

"Some were small. Choosing one route over another. Sending a group to rest before an invasion no one expected. Moving archers hours before a migration. Others were large."

"And you never asked?"

"I asked."

Kaelen smiles with the side the scar allows.

"He told me to worry about my own Class."

That sounds like Valerius.

Garen rests his arms on his knees.

"We were never sure of the mechanism."

Kaelen nods.

"If he sees the future, he doesn’t seem to see it the way Sands does. Maybe he sees a short window. Maybe he sees possibilities. Maybe specific events. I never found out."

He looks directly at me.

"But be careful. Valerius isn’t just a gravity mage. Gravity is the part of him everyone knows about."

The room seems to shrink.

Garen had already told me about the rumor.

I just never knew someone like Kaelen had witnessed evidence.

And while the two of them keep talking, an old memory starts reorganizing things I’d accepted for years without questioning.

The Aion Sanctuary.

I remember the chase through the corridors, the traps, the Deepwarden men dying behind me as I pushed toward the altar room. Back then, I blamed all of it on Rae’s betrayal. Leaked information. Known routes. An organization with enough resources to arrive first.

But Valerius wasn’t chasing me when I reached the altar.

He was already there.

Standing before the Codex.

Waiting.

For years, I thought he simply knew where I was going.

Now there’s a much worse possibility.

Maybe Valerius never needed to find out my destination.

Maybe he’d seen where I would end up.